


Happiness Found Them

by AlixxBlack



Series: Holidays with Merthur [15]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Father's Day, Gen, M/M, Merlin X Arthur - Freeform, Modern AU, holiday fluff, i don't know what else to tag sorry, otp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 15:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14957132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlixxBlack/pseuds/AlixxBlack
Summary: Gwen died unexpectedly, so Arthur raised his son alongside Merlin.





	Happiness Found Them

Eating breakfast together was sort of a holiday tradition. Every important holiday started at the table, usually with Merlin’s basically famous blueberry pancakes. And Father’s Day was no exception – all three boys sat at the table with their plates piled high with their favorite sugary sweet breakfasts.

 

Of all the holidays, Father’s Day was easier, Arthur found.

 

After years without Gwen, the pain of her loss lingered just as strongly as the day she died. Nothing had been wrong – and then _everything_ was wrong. It started as a common cold, then it became the flu, then she developed pneumonia, and then – her organs began to fail? She was only sick for a week, but her health deteriorated so quickly that Arthur felt that he hadn’t had time to properly grieve her loss. It made Mother’s Day a complete nightmare.

 

Thomas, his son, was too young to really remember Gwen. He was only a little older than a year, and he’d grown up in a world where had just his father. Well, his _fathers._

 

Merlin started off as Arthur’s personal assistant at Pendragon Incorporated. When Gwen died, however, Merlin stepped in and offered to help with Thomas too. Things were awkward for several months as Arthur got used to Merlin being everywhere in his life – at work, at home, in his leisure time – but eventually it was so normal that Arthur couldn’t imagine a moment in his day without Merlin.

 

Thomas had grown up thinking of Merlin as his dad too because of how often he was around, and at some point he had moved into their guest bedroom as a permanent member of the Pendragon household. Arthur never corrected his son’s thinking, and had come to really love Merlin. The three of them made a whole family in their special way. As with Gwen, wherever Arthur was lacking, Merlin could more than compensate his weaknesses. It worked in the reverse as well, which made their dynamic every bit as natural as when he was married to Gwen.

 

Marriage isn’t something that gets discussed in the Pendragon household. Merlin and Arthur didn’t really do much besides work and spend time with Thomas. Their son kept them very busy between his clubs and sports. Arthur was sure that their eleven year old was the only one of his friends that required his own planner. Every night there was something going on that he needed do for sport or school.

 

So it was really odd when Thomas asked his dads about marriage.

 

“Are you going to get married?” Thomas asked abruptly as he cut into his pancakes. Merlin choked, though not quite as dramatically as Arthur. Their forks and knives dropped against the plate, clanging the only noise to fill the awkward silence.

 

Merlin spoke first, probably due to a clearer mind that Arthur at the time. “Why do you ask, Tom?”

 

“You’ve just been together for a long time and I thought people who love each other got married usually,” he said, an air about his thought process reflective of his age. Innocence often allowed Thomas to speak frankly about things that would’ve made Merlin and Arthur think twice before speaking. Careful word choice is the worry of an adult, they’d come to realize.

 

Merlin looked at Arthur, expecting him to answer the question. Was there really an answer to give? They’d never considered themselves in a relationship so much as a partnership, or so that was as far as Arthur had ever thought of it. Merlin had never suggested it was more than friendship either.

 

Arthur sucked in as much air as his lungs could hold. Even as he opened his mouth, he hadn’t been sure what he would say. “Not every couple that is in love gets married, Thomas. Every relationship is different.”

 

“But you got married to mom,” Thomas commented, looking even more confused.

 

Merlin interjected this time. “We put so much of our love and time into making sure that you’re having a good childhood, I don’t think we’ve really ever discussed what our future looks like. Neither one of us has been on a date in years – more years than you’ve been alive!”

 

Thomas dropped his jaw, his half chewed pancakes exposed with his open mouth. He tried to talk through it but everything he said was totally incoherent. Arthur theorized that it was a sarcastic comment about how old they were or how sad it was that they hadn’t gone on a date.

 

When he swallowed his food, he made a declaration. “Well, you should go on a date for Father’s Day! I have sixty dollars in my piggy bank so I can send you out to dinner, I think.”

 

Thomas left the table without permission and pattered away to his bedroom. He came back with a stack of ones and a list of restaurants that he thought might be romantic enough for his dads. Merlin and Arthur didn’t want to squash their son’s excitement and timidly agreed to go out for dinner.

 

“While you’re on your date, do you think Grandma Hunith could watch me instead of Aunt Morgana?” he requested as he gathered up Merlin and Arthur’s shoes. Apparently, Morgana was kind of grumpy and not very nice the last time she watched him. Thomas continued to make plans for their ‘date’ that evening.

 

But by the time Hunith came around to watch Thomas, it didn’t seem like a terrible idea. There was a steakhouse that Arthur had wanted to try that opened on the other side of town, and Merlin decided they don’t do enough for themselves anyway. Neither of them really intended to call it a date until they got to the restaurant.

 

It was only because the server asked if their fathers were planning to join them. “We are the fathers, actually,” Arthur had said curtly. “Our son wanted us to come out for dinner just the two of us.” All at once, they acknowledged indirectly that it _was_ a date. In fact, it ended up being the server that called it a date first, but Merlin and Arthur did as they had always done: accepted it.

 

What had been a partnership blossomed into much more after that night, and eventually it did result in a wedding – which Thomas thought was exactly how it should’ve happened. They married on Father’s Day, of course, because it seemed right. It was Thomas’ idea.

 

Arthur and Merlin hadn’t known how full their life could be until their nuptials. It was strange how their roles as fathers turned out to be more of a consequence to an action they never took, the effect to an unpredictable cause. And yet, they never felt as if they were forced into the life that they had come to share.

 

It just found them.

 

Happiness found them when they weren’t even looking.


End file.
